JABES Editorial Board Annual Meeting and JABES-NTUMR Special Session under the ACBES 2023

On the afternoon of August 16, 2023, the Journal of Asian Business and Economic Studies (JABES) held the annual meeting of the JABES Editorial Board (JABES Annual Meeting) and a special meeting co-organized by JABES and NTU Management Review (NTUMR) of the College of Management in National Taiwan University with the theme “The Role of the Editor and Editor's Essentials”.

Prof. Nguyen Trong Hoai, Editor-in-Chief of JABES, on behalf of the ACBES 2023 Organizing Committee, opened the conference and introduced attendees including guests from JABES partners and members of the Editorial Board. In his opening speech, Prof. Nguyen Trong Hoai briefly mentioned that JABES has been indexed in high quality list (SCOPUS, ISI, ABDC) in the past 5 years and emphasized that this was the first JABES Editorial Board meeting in person to take place at the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City (UEH) in 3 years. He added that the members of the JABES Editorial Council only work on the online platform, and through this Conference, JABES's strategy will be maintained: the achievements of JABES English version when it indexed in SCOPUS ranked Q1, and the expectation that JABES Vietnamese version will also approach the minimum SCOPUS standard to join in ACI.

Prof. Nguyen Trong Hoai speaking at the opening of the Annual Meeting

Dr. Huynh Luu Duc Toan presented a report to the Editorial Board on the impressive statistics collected from the JABES Management System. JABES’s research has been increasingly recognized and reputable by the Asia and global community of scientists over the years, with the number of downloads reaching nearly 120,000 in 2022 and a Citescore of 2023 is 7.2.

Dr. Huynh Luu Duc Toan presenting the JABES Statistical Report on impressive figures and the topic "Research Ethics - Authorship, Papermills and Principles of Review"

In this conference, Dr. Huynh Luu Duc Toan shared some experiences on the topic “Research Ethics - Authorship, Papermills and Principles of Review” proposed by Emerald International Publishing that have been presented to JABES on a working trip to Taiwan in July 2023. This topic emphasized possible forms of copyright infringement (including the author’s use of artificial intelligence, change of copyright, disputes over the order of authors and the extent of each person's contribution to the article and so on); papermill-related issues, papermill identifiers, and confidential review guidelines. A new change was introduced to the Editorial Board to ensure academic integrity: do not invite two reviewers from the same institution to comment on articles submitted by the same institution. Thereby, Dr. Huynh Luu Duc Toan shared some review principles listed as: no conflict of interest between reviewers and authors, reviewers must ensure confidentiality, seriousness, and impartiality as well as manipulating to citation of their own articles. Finally, he also presented some important recommendations: checking the author’s email as well as the matching between the author’s affiliation, email and author’s name; In addition, the review time and content should also be clearly considered.

The members of the Editorial Board and guests enthusiastically sharing and contributing to the topic "Research Ethics - Authorship, Papermills and Principles of Review".

The members of the editorial board and the invited guests actively exchanging and discussing

The program was followed by a Special Session co-organized by JABES and NTUMR with the theme “Editor's Role and Editor's Essentials.”

Opening this special session, Prof. Nguyen Trong Hoai introduced Prof. Chih-Hsun Chuang - the professor of the Faculty of Business Administration at National Chung Hsing University (Taiwan) as well as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Organization and Management, which is ranked as one of the Top Journals in Taiwan. His research interests include strategic human resource management and leadership.

At the meeting with members of the Editorial Board and editors of JABES, Prof. Chih-Hsun Chuang shared the topic of editors' roles and responsibilities and how to be an excellent journal and specialty editor. The editor's role includes: Supporting the manuscript review process, providing subject-specific expertise, and making recommendations to journal editors. Throughout this process, editors must identify potential reviewers with appropriate expertise and ensure a rigorous review process. In addition, an Editor needs to actively and promptly communicate with authors and reviewers and especially consult the Editor-in-Chief. To the author, the Editor needs to provide clear, detailed instructions to meet the standards and Regulations of the Journal. Editors also need to continually expand their knowledge through reading and attending international scientific conferences, and networking with researchers and scholars. At the same time, editors must promote transparency and accountability in the publishing process, and understand how to handle ethical issues fairly and with integrity.

Prof. Chih-Hsun Chuang giving an online presentation that shared the topic of editors' roles and responsibilities and how to become excellent journal and specialty editors.

This special session was honored to receive the presence of Prof. Lee Chia-Ling from National Chengchi University (Taiwan) who is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Accounting Review. Prof. Lee works at the Department of Accountancy at National Chengchi University, Taiwan. The research topics of Prof. Lee are Management Accounting, Cost Management, Strategic Performance Management, and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Prof. Lee shared that the role of the Editor-in-Chief is the first decision maker on whether an article will be rejected for publication (Desk Rejection) or will be submitted for review through the Editors, and at the same time, it is also the person who makes the final decision on whether the article should be published or not. Specifically, an Editor-in-Chief has duties and responsibilities including organizing the journal editorial board, running an effective editorial board meeting, creating an environment for research publication, ensuring that the published manuscript is of good quality and maintaining the publication schedule for the journal, ensuring published manuscripts that reflect current trends in the field of research and incorporate emerging research topics, promote the journal to local and foreign scholars, and ultimately seek out potential research for publication. In addition, the success of a journal depends on the quality of the reviews. Accordingly, Prof. Lee emphasized, “Finding high-quality Reviewers is extremely important and necessary.” Reviewers should provide a review report on time, be aware of the article's conflicts of interest, adhere to an anonymous, confidential review, and avoid asking questions differently across each version of the article. Reviewers need to answer the following questions for themselves after reviewing the article: What is the purpose of the study? Do the arguments have a theoretical basis? Is the research method appropriate? Does the research conclusion meet the research topic? What is the contribution and relationship between the current documents and this article?

At the end of this special session, there was an interesting sharing from Dr. Pham Hung Hiep (Hiep Pham) – The Co-editor of Evaluation Review. Evaluation Review focuses on evaluation research in social sciences (all types of evaluation, i.e. process, performance, and impact). Articles considered for publication include evaluation analysis results, methodological discussions, and other relevant articles on evaluative research. Thereby, Dr. Pham Hung Hiep shared that the journal's experience and current strategy is to diversify the editorial board to include members from North America, Europe, and Asia. In addition, the Journal needs to expand its search for manuscripts from different countries and towards manuscripts applying new methods such as qualitative.

Dr. Pham Hung Hiep sharing his experiences and strategies for international journal management

Concluding the Conference with more than two hours of effective discussion, Prof. Nguyen Trong Hoai thanked and presented a souvenir from UEH to all members of the Editorial Board, who took the time to attend the Annual Meeting of the JABES Editorial Board and the Special Meeting co-hosted by JABES and NTUMR Journal.